


Wind Down

by angellwings



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Family, Friendship/Love, Honesty, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s02e03 And What Lies Beneath the Stones, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellwings/pseuds/angellwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in Oklahoma, Jacob, Cassandra, & Ezekiel go out for a beer. Jacob decides he and Cassandra need to talk about one of her truths. Turns out, it's just what Cassandra needs to hear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wind Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Day 19 of 25 Days of Jassandra for jassandratrash on tumblr! Enjoy!

The case in Oklahoma went surprisingly well for their first case back without Baird around to mediate. More squabbling than usual and they were all maybe a bit raw and bare, but they survived and no one lost any limbs. Jake and Ezekiel were ready to have their separate corners for a while, which wasn’t any different than the cases before. And as for herself, Cassandra was just grateful to have friends again. She’d never had a place she belonged and she had a feeling she never would again. The Library was it. These people were it.

With Hoklonote locked away forever, Cassandra gathered her things to head back to her cozy apartment where a warm shower was waiting for her. There was something about seeing a creature wear your face that made you feel dirty all the way through. As she walked toward the door she heard footfalls behind her and knew it had to be Stone. She would have never heard Ezekiel coming.

“Hey, Cassie—“ he stopped mid sentence and cleared his throat. “Cassandra.”

She bit her bottom lip to keep from grinning at him. He tried not to call her Cassie too much. She’d caught him correcting himself often enough to notice.

“Yes?” She asked curiously as she turned to face him.

“We’re going out for a beer later. Wanna come?” He asked with a warm smile that made the corner of his eyes crinkle up. She loved it when they did that. He didn’t smile like that often enough.

“Really? I could have sworn you and Ezekiel wanted to be far away from each other for a few days. And then with everything with your dad…”

He smiled sadly and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can stand Jones long enough to go get a celebratory drink. After that though, I don’t plan on being in the same room with him for at least a week. There’s only so much of the thief I can take at once. As for everything else—well, I’ll have work to distract me from that later. Right now, I would really like to kickback and have a beer with my… _friends_.”

Her eyebrows rose for a moment and she swallowed thickly. He’d actually called them friends. Outloud. No way she was saying no now. “Okay, sure. I’d love to come. What time?”

“In about two hours? Do you need any more time than that?” He asked.

She shook her head in response. “No, two hours is plenty.”

“Alright, same place as always,” he said. “We’ll see you then.”

She gave a small wave and then resumed heading home to her apartment. Usually, when they’d worked together before, she or Ezekiel arranged for the after-case drinks. Jacob would usually go if they asked but he never planned them. It was interesting to her that he took the initiative this time. She showered and changed clothes before she left to meet them. She would never be able to look at that outfit the same way again now that she’d seen it on something pretending to be her. When she arrived she found them seated in a booth with a beer waiting for her.

“Hey,” Jacob said as he slid over to make room for her. “I ordered for you. Hope you don’t mind.”

“He knows your favorite beer, did you know that?” Ezekiel asked her. “Ask him how he knows. Go ahead. Ask him how.”

“Man, _shut up_ ,” Jacob sneered with a glare at Ezekiel. Ezekiel smirked and then gave Cassandra an expectant look.

“Well, are you gonna ask him? It’s not like we haven’t bared our souls already today. What’s one more truth?”

“Why don’t _you_ just ask him?” Cassandra asked dryly. “Do I really need to relay the question?”

“He knows because, get this, he ‘pays attention.’ How closely do you _pay_ attention, mate?” Ezekiel asked with a chuckle.

Jacob rolled his eyes at the younger man. “Some of us notice things about _other_ people, Jones. We’re not all as single minded as you.”

“Leave him alone,” Cassandra said as she gave Ezekiel a scolding look. “He’s art and history. If anyone sees details, it’s him. Let it go.”

“If you say so,” Ezekiel said as he looked toward the door and smirked. “If you’ll excuse me, someone very interesting just walked through the door.”

Both Jacob and Cassandra looked up to see a young, leggy, brunette walking toward the bar.

“So predictable,” Cassandra said with a chuckle. She held up her beer to Jacob before she took a sip and then said, “Thanks for the beer, by the way.”

He shrugged. “No problem. So, uh, that case was…intense. Even fun, _at times_.”

She beamed at him. “It really was. It reminded me of Rome, at one point. You know, before the Apple and all the crazy stuff.”

“With the calculations of the space and the snake on the wall?” He asked knowingly.

“Yes! Exactly!” She said with a bit of relief when he knew exactly what she meant.

“It _was_ sort of a perfect moment where our skills seemed to work hand in hand,” he said with a soft smile and a nod of acknowledgement. “Teamwork at it’s best.” He reached over clinked the neck of his beer bottle against hers in a friendly gesture.

“We do make a good team,” she agreed. “Not that I really have a frame of reference for much teamwork, that is. I’ve always been more of the independent study type, myself.”

“I’ve done a bit of both,” he told her. “I can tell you, this is definitely a unique kind of team. Never been on a team that feels like this one. It’s different.”

“How do you think Baird and Flynn are doing?” Cassandra asked him. Bringing up the ‘team’ lately caused her to think about two of their teammates in particular. “She hasn’t really mentioned him since he left.”

Jacob frowned thoughtfully. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. They disagree on the methods, I think. Eventually they’ll come around. They care about each other too much to keep up this fight for long.”

Cassandra smiled wistfully to herself. “Must be nice,” she said sadly. “To care about someone like that.”

“Yeah,” Jacob agreed. Though his tone sounded more bitter than wistful. “Must be.”

Sensing his change in mood, Cassandra thought she’d better change the subject. “I bet you $10 Ezekiel strikes out,” she said as she motioned to where the kid had propped himself next to the brunette at the bar.

Jacob laughed loudly. “Wait, wait, wait. Cassandra Cillian is betting _against_ someone? Really?”

She giggled and then grinned at him. “Well, do we have a bet or not?”

Jake smirked at her and then took a moment to observe Ezekiel and the girl at the bar. “Yeah, okay, I’ll take that bet. I’ve seen him miraculously hit it off with supermodels so this should be a piece of cake.”

Not even a second later, Ezekiel was doused in martini. Cassandra laughed maniacally and held out her hand to Jacob. “Sucker,” she practically sang to him. “Pay up.”

“How the hell did you—“

“Tan line on her left ring finger, diamond bracelet on her right wrist, Jimmy Choos on her feet. Ezekiel was planning a lift. He was _not_ planning to succeed with her,” Cassandra said with a grin. “He failed on purpose. To _distract_ her.”

Jacob blinked at her for a long moment and then shook his head with a chuckle. “You hustled me. You totally hustled me.”

She shook her head at him and smiled brightly. “No. It’s just that, well… _I pay attention.”_

“Oh, I knew you’d use that against me at some point,” he said with an easy smile. “Just didn’t think you’d do it so soon.”

She laughed and shrugged as she took another sip of her beer. She felt his eyes on her for a long moment before he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and then cleared his throat.

“I feel like we should talk about something,” he said in a low voice as he avoided looking at her face.

“Jacob, I really don’t want to talk about the day that I—“

He winced and shook his head at her. “I wasn’t going to—It’s not that I’m not… _curious_ about that, Cassandra, but that wasn’t what I thought we should talk about. Not here, anyway, and maybe not so soon after this case.” He paused and sighed. “Eventually, though, we do need to address that too.”

“If that’s not what you wanted to talk about then—“

“You said you knew I thought you were sick,” he told her. He shook his head. “I know that you’re sick. It’s hard not to know that, but I haven’t treated you that way. I’ve never let that effect how _we_ work. So I guess, I was just…confused by that.”

Her brow furrowed at him and she shook her head at him. “You have.”

“When?” He asked. “I can’t think of anything.”

“You’re so protective of me. More so than the others,” she told him. “I know that my illness and my hallucinations make me different but I’m not weak. I can hand—“

“Is that all?” Jacob asked her. “That’s what you’re thinking of when you say that?”

She bit her bottom lip and nodded wordlessly.

“Cassandra, that’s not—that wasn’t—That has nothing to do with your tumor,” he admitted.

“Then, _why_?” Cassandra asked as she turned her gaze to her beer bottle and started to peel back a loose corner of the label. “Why are you so much more concerned with me than anyone else on the team?”

He ran a hand over his face and then through his hair. Cassandra could see him trying to collect his thoughts and figure out his words. She held her breath while she waited for him to answer her.

“I don’t know,” he admitted with a huff. “I don’t. I mean I have an idea but I don’t really—you’re important to me, Cassie. You’re special. I just want to make sure you’re safe, first.” He finally looked up and met her eyes as he placed a finger on his temple. “It’s not _this_ that makes me do that,” he told her. “It’s not your tumor. I would be just as protective without it.”

She gave him a confused expression and shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why?” He asked her in a challenging tone. “Because for the majority of your life all most people have ever seen when they looked at you was your tumor? I’m not most people, Cassie. I thought we covered that today?”

She swallowed thickly and gave him a surprised glance. “Honestly? You’re telling me the truth?”

“If I knew it wouldn’t release Hoklonote I’d take you back to that cage door right now and prove it to you,” he said with a confident nod. “I don’t try to protect you because you’re sick. I protect you because I care about you, Cassandra. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. I promise.”

A moment later she’d launched herself at him from her seat next to him in the booth and had both of her arms wrapped around him a tight hug. Their second hug ever, he noted. He smiled softly and returned the hug and rubbed her back in a comforting gesture.

“So you don’t think I’m sick?” Cassandra asked him quietly.

Jake shook his head as Cassandra rested her chin on his shoulder. “You’re sick. I know you’re sick. But it’s not all you are. It doesn’t define you. Not to me. _You_ and your skill set are separate from that in my eyes. Always have been.”

He felt her shift and then bury her face in the crook of his neck for a moment before he heard her mumble, “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Jake replied with an affectionate smile. “Anytime you need a reminder, let me know.”

She nodded against his neck. “Okay.”

“Is this what we’ve become now? Huggers?” Ezekiel asked as he joined them again.

Jacob glared at him as Cassandra immediately pulled away and blushed brightly. Her blush turned into a disgusted face as he slid into the seat next to her and she scooted as far away from him as she could.

“You smell like martini,” she told him as she noticed his soaked shirt.

“Yeah, well, I just had it thrown in my face so that makes sense,” Ezekiel said with a smirk.

“What’d you steal?” Jake asked with a huff.

“Nothing she’ll miss,” Ezekiel told him. “The bracelet was from the ex, anyway. I did her a favor.”

Jake shook his head and Cassandra rolled her eyes.

“Was that really necessary?” Cassandra asked him.

“Absolutely,” Ezekiel answered. “No night out is complete without at least one lift.” 


End file.
